The Daily Struggle

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Sally had been late to arrive so I (and everyone else) watched her decline the cookies and have her picture taken. While watching this, I was struggling to decide whether or not I found her attractive. Even though she had just introduced herself to me in very close quarters, I had no idea. She was sitting quite awkwardly in her chair and wasted no time in explaining why.

"who gets a tattoo done the day before school? It's awesome you should see it!"

Before I could respond Steve piped up from beside me.

"ohhh! I was wondering why you were sitting like that, I thought Ryley smelled bad or something"

Steve: 1 / Ryley: 0

Honestly, Steve is a dickhead but he kinda saved me from ruining my first impression when he embarrassed himself with that weak ass joke. I don't have a clue what I would have said in response to Sally. So instead of actually responding to her I cracked a joke about my axe deodorant and how the commercial told me that girls would love it. Yes, I actually wear axe deodorant and the worst part is that I might wear it based on the commercials (i know). And in case you were wondering, the joke bombed miserably.

We proceeded to ask each other questions from our icebreaker handout and then went our separate ways to meet the rest of our classmates. The majority of answers I heard to the majority of questions that were asked somehow involved alcohol or getting drunk. Everyone was on a mission to say something clever when asked one of these questions but everyone (myself included) was coming up with the same unoriginal shit. I had just finished explaining Vince Carters missed jumpshotagainst the sixers in 2001 to a very uninterested classmate when I noticed that one of the better looking girls from my class was in my vicinity. I cut my 'Vince Carter is an asshole' rant short and went over to "break the ice". We introduced ourselves (we'll call her Anna) and moved quickly into the handout questions, I went first.

"So Anna, What's your favourite thing to do in your hometown?"

She giggled and followed with one word...

"sex"

Now, from a literal standpoint this doesn't really make sense. I mean you don't 'do sex' in your hometown. From where I was standing though, I really didn't give a shit. Now I like to think of myself as someone who excels in these types of situations but i had nothing. I told her that she made me blush and stumbled while saying something about her being my favourite interview so far. I almost walked away before I realized I didn't let her ask me one of the icebreaker questions. She asked me something about managing my time now that I'm in school and I responded like so:

"I don't know, I just got here. I'm not good at this. Anna you seem to be good at this, what am I supposed to say here?"

"ummm....faster sex? So you have more time for other stuff?"

"yeah sure, put that down. But if they ask you to share any of your answers just tell everyone I said I'd buy a calender"

That was my first and only interaction with Anna and somehow I can't really remember what she looks like, only that she looked good. It's like the word "sex" had the same effect on me as that dumb thing from the movie Men In Black.

The rest of my day consisted of a tour of the school that was very long followed by a free lunch. At lunch time I sat with 5 of my classmates and everyone basically just tried to prove their worth as a TV student. I was relatively quiet while my new friends discussed the impact that 'Star Wars' had on the film industry. The most unfortunate thing about this lunch experience was that I could hardly even pay attention to what was going on because this loudmouth (we'll call him LD) at my table could not help but attempt to be funny in approximately 15 second intervals. The worst part was that he was wearing these ridiculous sunglasses and every attempt at a joke felt like the intro to an episode of 'CSI Miami' only much worse and with no attention grabbing murder-mystery to ponder.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

I had signed up for this account quite a long time ago. As I tend to do with most writing oriented projects I take on, I abandonded this very early. Typed a few sentences, erased them, re-typed them and then closed the window and probably got drunk instead. I constantly struggle with subject matter but after today I have decided that I would attempt to journal the majority of my days spent as a 23 year old student. Today was orientation, I had been informed that orientation is not cool to attend but it was better than work, and better than the guilt that comes along with using orientation as an excuse to get out of work and doing something completley different.

The first dilemma of my day came when I seen my backpack lying on the floor of my room. It was completley empty except for a condom that had been in there for what could be two years. I wanted to wear it because I felt it would make me feel like a real student. I just wasn't sure if this was ridiculous considering I had nothing to bring since I had misplaced the notebooks my mother had given me 2 days ago. I went over a scenario in my head where someone might say "hey! What's in the bag?!" and decided i would respond by saying "Nothing, I'm counting on picking up a bunch of pamphlets and shit". So since I had my lame rebuttle ready, I decided to wear the bag. I'm struggling with this shit before i've even left the house...

My trainride to school was like any other train ride anywhere except that I felt excellent about it. I'm sure noone on the train really even cared to notice me, but I just assumed that everyone on their way to work was jealous of me since college seems to be a time remembered so fondly by older people. I arrived at the school and had no idea where I was going, but the dude in front of me conveiniently asked a volunteer for directions to the room I was going to. I didn't really feel like chatting with this dude just yet so I kept a distance just reasonable enough that I could follow him without it being weird to not say anything. I followed him until his walk began to lack confidence and he slowed considerably. I decided to make my first contact with a classmate and said "aw man, you're not lost are you? I was following you" he looked like he was working up something clever to say and before he could an older guy (one of my soon-to-be instructors) popped his head out the door, asked what we were looking for and then motioned us in. That was my first contact with a 'fellow student' and it was quite brief. I cannot remember what the guys name was, but we'll call him Steve for now (which could very well be his name, he looks like a Steve).

I have yet to reveal what i'm taking in school but I suppose now would be as good a time as any to do so. I have enrolled in a 2 year Television, Radio and Brodcast News program with my major being in Television. I often daydreamed about class during the summer, the mental picture I got was of a room filled with young entertainment industry types. Smart ass womanizing dudes, pretentious dudes with beards and flannel shirts, sharp witted women wearing blazers and eye glasses, indy rock guys, hiphop guys, hipsters, artsy people. The sight I was greeted with was nothing like I had pictured over the summer. I felt as if I had walked into what might be a Dungeons and Dragons tournament, or if i'm being kind (VERY kind), a fantasy baseball draft. I had my picture taken and thankfully declined the free cookies they were offering at the entrance of the room. I took a seat beside Steve who immediatley began not so subtley sizing me up by asking a series of generic questions designed to segway into him speaking slightly louder than neccesary about himself. After boring him he began to work on the the girl sitting beside him...thank you.

After everyone piled into the room the orientation began and it was well...orientation. Introductions followed by information about the program and school sprinkled with some humour. This was fairly painless since I had kept busy by attempting to sneak looks at my future female classmates. After the instructors had finished their portion it was time to "break the ice", an opportunity to meet some of these student whom I had already unfairly judged. And more importantly, an opportunity to meet some of the girls whom I had reserved any judgement for because well..they are girls and I tend to give them a free pass. For example, the guy who entered my class wearing gloves holding a skateboard that he had designed himself (a chinese symbol that probably meant something totally fuckin awesome like "Inner Beauty or "Strength of a Tiger" or some shit) was judged very harshly and I immediatley assumed him to be incureably wack. A girl holding the same skateboard with the same gloves may be subjected to slightly less harsh judgement if she were to posses some of the qualities enjoyed by the superficial male. (That's basically a god damn lie but you get my point. wearing gloves because you've been riding a skateboard around campus is inexcuseable and if you've ever done this, shame on you)

Anyways...

In my hand was a sheet of paper with 15 very basic questions on it, I was to walk around and ask my new classmates these questions and in return they would do the same. So I turned to my left and before I had a chance to say anything.

"Hi, I'm Salley, nice to meet you" (no her name isn't actually Salley, i'm not sure if anyone is actually named Salley)